Common as dirt but well worthwhile,
Cha Chas for Dancing is one of the few essential, Latinate percussion albums. To call it a percussion album is perhaps unfair. While the conga is well (airily) recorded, the horns are the main thing, arranged as they are in the high-'60s mod style associated more with
Billy May. In fact, this sounds like
Billy May arranged the horns, but perhaps that is being unkind to
Montenegro. The tunes are all standards but not the weak choices usually found on Command and Time albums of this ilk. This baby has teeth. Further, "Boo Qui, Woo Qui" has to be the hippest recording of that tune as well as the mod classic of this brilliant set. Latin fans are advised not to think of it as Latin at all but just to play it very loudly.
Cha Chas for Dancing does not pretend to be anything more than a dance album, but it is. It's a killer brass album.